Wednesday, August 27, 2008
We knew the drought was ending...
Because it was time for the county fair. Sure enough, another fair parade in the rain. Emma has been so excited about the fair finally being here. She would even tell us, "I'm so excited the fair is almost here."

We had the usual potluck dinner at MIL's house. It was a slightly lower turnout. The folks around here are so used to doing the fair in the rain it hardly phases them anymore. Fortunately, for almost the entire parade we were showered with a fine mist, instead of pouring rain. The rain came again when the last of the horses passed us by. We opted to skip going into the fairground tonight. M figured it would just tick Emma off to see rides she couldn't ride in the rain.

Claiming their parade viewing spot.


I tried to catch a picture of the school dance team, but as you can see they turned on me.


People threw so much candy at us it was insane. M flipped the umbrella over to catch that batch. It got so bad we were only picking up the candy that interested us. There is still a ton of candy laying in the puddles by the road.


Here is our annual gallon refill of fair parade candy.


It's spread out to dry under our cabinet light. At the rate of piece a night after dinner, Emma will be able to make this last until next summer. Nevermind Halloween being a mere two months away...

Monday, August 25, 2008
Hey, Noni
This makes that whole dunking-you-in-the-pool episode a little more suspect, doesn't it?



I keed, I keed :D
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The world around us...
It took four trips to the sound over two years before we realized what was going on around our feet at water's edge. Hermit crabs. The real deal. They were much smaller than what you'd find at the souvenir shop. Instead of dooming these buggers to certain death like we would if we had bought one, we felt more like helping these little fellas live longer. In other words, we didn't keep any. We found around seven or eight of them and aggravated them a little and then sent them on their merry way.


Still Noni's Toy
Here Noni is jiggling Emma around so that the toy in her hand flops around. Emma thinks this is hilarious.


Now Noni has moved onto the more generalized kissing attack.


Mmm...mmm...good!
Kudos to Popi for the corn from his garden he sent us home with last night. It drew raves at the dinner table. It was fresh, sweet and very tasty. We're having another batch tonight.
For a friend...
We went to a funeral this afternoon. It was the father of four brothers we're friends with. We took Emma along because 1. Grandma (who is also our local babysitter) was going to the funeral too. 2. I'm not interested in shielding Emma from death, since it's a large part of life. We don't go into gory detail, but we explain things on her level and she asks whatever questions come up. Plus, we didn't expect that the funeral would be too long.

Wrong. It lasted a full hour. I was a very nice service. Many family members got up and spoke about the deceased and I enjoyed their reminisces. However, an hour is a long time for a three year-old to sit quietly. We had our struggles with her, but overall she did pretty good.

Here she is dressed for the service: